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Battle of Kimball Point
The bloody battle fought in and around one of the few NCR posts left on the Legion side of the Colorado River. Background When General and later president Aaron Kimball charged through the Mojave and down along the eastern bank of the Colorado he set up a series of defensive posts meant to protect the NCR from any attacks aimed at New California from the untamed side of the river. However, when the Legion stepped up the war with the NCR in the Mojave these posts were put in the crosshairs of a very violent and very agile commander named Legate Cassius, commander of the 15th cohort. The base itself was mostly manned by NCR rangers who used the base as a jump off point for patrols and raids into Arizona against the Legion, the only other forces at the base was a small squad-sized detachment of NCR troopers put there for perimeter defense. The builder of the camp had been very wise in their choosing of the location for the camp, built into the ruins of a small Arizona town named Parker and conveniently located close to a ferry run by an old ghoul and the trade center of New Essex, so resupplying the base was not an issue for the NCR. Yet should the Legion land a force further down the river and march up to attack the ferry the camp could be isolated from the outside. Yet this problem seemed to be remedied when the town of Silverton was setup cole by the river, the presence of an armed militia and later a squad of NCR troopers meant the base supply lines at least had some defense. Early Warnings and Preparation When Ranger patrols had come back to camp reporting contact with heavily armed legion patrols it was soon realized by the bases' commander Colonel Phillip Taylor that they would soon be under attack and need extra men and supplies when he sent his requests for supplies his superiors in Shady Sands thought he was simply overreacting, yet when only a week later a whole patrol of Rangers were wiped out while on patrol and the camp was hit by a reinforced raiding party his superiors finally considered his request and sent supplies and replacements to Kimball Point. Yet these supplies were only half of those requested seeing that most supplies were headed for the Mojave, the Legion raids intensified as the cohort began to assemble around the base, the base was soon being faced down by a legion force nearly twice its garrison size. Yet the Rangers held out, the troopers under Colonel Taylors' direction set-up an elaborate minefield in front of the town, laced with mines, booby traps, jury-rigged guns, bear traps and just about anything else that could kill a man, to add ranger spent any time in between raids digging trench lines, setting up machine gun positions, creating hard points of resistance and sighting the base's artillery battery on key areas. Soon the defenses around Kimball Point looked nearly insurmountable. The machine guns were set up in concrete bunkers with interlocking fields of fire, the artillery was sighted in key areas to maximize casualties and the minefield was fought with enough explosives and traps to kill a whole raiding party on its own. The Siege of Kimball Point The first raiding parties were small, 12-15 men searching for a weak point in the defenses and yet when they found none Legate Cassius instead of surrounding and starving out the base simply decided to throw his men at its defenses. The Legionnaires attacked the base repeatedly without success and the Rangers at Kimball point only got stronger as Chief Hanlon sent them supplies and reinforcements. This stayed the same for a few months until the Legion snuck a centurion and his raiding party across the Colorado further down the river, this raiding party attacked the NCR supply lines going from Shady Sands to New Essex all the way to the ferry, yet the NCR countered this by sending extra soldiers with the caravans and stockpiling them in the town of Silverton, then moving them under heavy guard to the river. The deployment of a squad of troopers to Silverton provided some safety along the route from New Essex to Silverton, yet the strain on men most of which were needed in the Mojave proved to be yet another issue so the hiring of Badlander Mercenaries became a common practice for getting the supplies to Kimball Point. Yet when the Legion laid siege to the town of Silverton Kimball Point was cut off from supplies, soon the Rangers were low on ammo and the continuous raids began to crack the defenses causing casualties to mount, the NCR Airforce flew in supplies and reinforcements but these were too few in number to effect the losses sustained. Yet Colonel Taylor stoically stood by and led his men in this dire hour and finally the town of Silverton freed itself from the Legion Siege and supplies once again rolled into Kimball Point along with much needed replacements. Yet what these fresh forces found was a shell of the fortress that had once been Kimball Point, a platoon-sized force of Rangers and Troopers sat in hastily dug positions around the command bunker. The few remaining buildings in the town were shot full of holes, the civilians that were on base had either holed themselves up in the ruins or been killed by the Legion. The Rangers and troopers would spend the next several days retaking their old positions and re-manning them. The Siege itself had been a trial almost the whole time and yet when the lull of combat in the Mojave occurred after the Battle of the Hoover Dam, the NCR finally sent a meaningful amount of supplies and men to the camp, Colonel Taylor along with most of the senior rangers on base that had fought since the start were either promoted and sent off on different assignments or given decorations and became NCR poster boys. The base is still an active battle ground with the NCR fighting to hold onto its grip on the Legion side of the Colorado River. Should one wish to find out what happened to some of the veterans of Kimball Point a few Rangers in the Mojave can trace their service record back to the early days at Kimball point, others were deployed to the Divide during the crucial battle there and like the everybody else deployed there perished when the nuclear bombs underground detonated, and to find the others simply look at NCR propaganda poster spread across NCR bases. Category:History Category:New California Republic